Note: a brick workout is one workout followed immediately by another, usually a medium bike followed by a medium run in the tri world. So, yesterday I went to one of the last Griffith Park Brick workouts, hosted for the LA Tri Club by Fortius Coaching, the totally badass-awesome home of Gerardo Barrios, who's helped me hugely though in an unofficial capacity, as my until-lately-unemployed-but-still-broke ass can't yet afford a legit coach (but I do highly recommend Fortius to the gainfully employed!) One day I'll join team. I have strong Protestant guilt... I wouldn't accept the advice without hoping I would one day pay for the actual coaching! (I don't ALWAYS want to be broke.)
I've enjoyed my share of free Fartleks there, the so funny-sounding run workout that means "speed play" in Swedish, where the group shifts leaders, and that leader picks a pace for a random stint of time, so you're mixing up your speed intervals. (I almost always go at a pace that is way past where I should be, though... oops. Overachiever.) The Griffith Park Brick is always a killer workout-- often 75 minutes up the hill towards the Observatory, then toss your bike in your car and do a six mile trail run. This time around, I ran while the others biked-- as I am training for a marathon, after all-- for about 45 minutes, down the horse trail into where the sand gets annoying-deep, and then back and up some hill I didn't know, and then I waited a spell for Triathlon Wunderkind and GMAT tutee Kevin, who's in training for Ironman 70.3 Austin, and we put on our headlamps and went for our six mile trail run. Daaaang, if I don't feel like a slow poke. Kev's a great training partner, because a.) he too is a Hollywood Triathlete, living off of Franklin and enjoying beer and social life independent of the sport and b.) he's fast as all get out, so you'll always be challenged if running or biking with him. Well, I had some nasty headache in the works, and found that I wasn't quite up to snuff... at one point, I actually got dizzy, I was pushing it so hard. So Kev was kind enough to ease off pace-wise-- plus my headlamp was brighter, so he didn't have a choice!-- and we still finished our 5.75 miles in 55 minutes, bathroom break included. He emailed me his marathon training plan from the LA Marathon (it looks more legit than whatever I copied out of that random book at Barnes and Noble) and advised me to do my long weekend runs on hills at a low heart rate to up my ante. So I'm adding nuance to the training plan (and hopefully an occasional spin class... gotta get good on the hills with my heart if I'm to do a whole trail marathon, eeeeek!)
Once off the hills, I did actually get my second wind and pick it up pretty decent. I'm not that far from kicking ass... I just need some new running shoes. (Lady I met in the parking lot says my brand, Mizuno, makes a killer trail running shoe, which you'd like to have for extra ankle support. I've had a couple stumbles, so I see the merit in that... time to start looking!)
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